Effortlessly uncool.

The Power of Nightmares, Part Three

I watched the final instalment of the BBC’s The Power of Nightmares documentary last night. As I’ve said before, I’m no expert on these matters but the main point of the programme, that there is no huge terrorist network with sleeper cells all over the world waiting to spring into action, does seem very plausible. I’m perfectly prepared to believe that politicians and the media have greatly exaggerated the threat from organised international terrorism, although I’m not stupid enough to believe that there are no terrorists at all – rather that they’re way less organised and well-funded than Blair and Bush would have us believe.

On a slightly cheerier note, I also watched John Lydon learning to dive in South Africa in order to do something he’d always wanted to do: swim with a Great White Shark. In one particularly memorable scene he met a young surfer who’d been unfortunate enough to have the lower part of his right leg bitten off by one of these creatures but, far from being bitter or angry, he was full of admiration for the sharks and was doing his best to help protect them. Hats off to him. All in all, far from being the fluff I rather expected, the programme turned out to be interesting and enjoyable, with Lydon’s usual clowning around utterly failing to mask his love and enthusiasm for Great Whites. I’m glad I saw it.

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One thought on “The Power of Nightmares, Part Three”

The programme is not a conspiracy as suggested, rather the links drawn between those two groups seem striking at first, but they are not that unusual. Philosophy, as an abstract art, doesn’t have that sociological richness as it deals with fundamental issues. In Straussian argument (and I took the pain to read his books) are elements of Plato (e.g. noble lie) and also an element (or more?) of Nietzsche, who has been wrongly accused to be the father of fascism (e.g. the concept of nihilism is purely his work). So in the end of the day, philosophically seen, you will end up in the moral or immoral camp. You either believe in something or you don’t with all its implications. And than you try to deal with the implications and you create Communism or Fascism or Neo-Conservatevism (they are all believers). I life in Oxford and visit debates/lectures on International Relations every week. Most of the said that there is no such thing as a network. They said it before Curties and they still say it now, so here we go.

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